Swachagraha-Bapu Ko Karyanjali exhibition

To mark the 100-year anniversary of Satyagrah movement, led by Mahatma Gandhi, an exhibition ”swachagraha” Bapu Ko Karyanjali” – A Mission, An Exhibition, at the National Archives of India, was recently inaugurated.

Key facts:

The exhibition aims to sensitise future generations to fulfill Gandhi’s dream of Swachh Bharat, ”where society’s reflection would be as clean as the thought within, of every citizen of India.

• The ‘digital’ and ‘experimental’ exhibition hopes to from a link between the essential principle of Satyagrah ‘Jeevan-Chakra’ evolved with the ‘Swacchagraha movement’.
• The exhibition succinctly depicts the events that unfolded in Champaran on April 10, 1917, when Gandhi started the Satyagrah movement, to fight for the rights of Indigo plantation farmers living in the region.

About the Satyagraha:

• It was undertaken in the erstwhile undivided Champaran district in northern Bihar. Mahatma Gandhi went there in April, 1917 on learning about the abuses suffered by the cultivators of the district, forced into growing indigo by British planters/estate owners.
• Even Gandhi was reluctant to commit himself to task in the beginning. But he was so thoroughly persuaded by Rajkumar Shukla, an indigo cultivator from Champaran that he decided to investigate into the matter.
• Gandhi’s method of inquiry at Champaran was based on surveys by the volunteers. The respondents who willingly gave statements should sign the papers or give thumb impressions. For those unwilling to participate, the reasons must be recorded by the volunteers. The principal volunteers in this survey were mostly lawyers like Babu Rajendra Prasad, Dharnidhar Prasad, Gorakh Prasad, Ramnawami Prasad, Sambhusaran and Anugraha Narain Sinha.
• In June 1917, the British administration declared the formation of a formal inquiry committee with Gandhi aboard. The Government accepted almost all its recommendations to the benefit of the ryats. The principal recommendation accepted was complete abolition of Tinkathia system. It was a major blow to the British planters who became resentful. But they could not prevent the passage of Champaran Agrarian Act in Bihar & Orissa Legislative Council on March 4, 1918.